World War II Reenactment and Big Band Concert
We had such a great time on Saturday that we're going to do it again tomorrow Sunday May 6. Rumors are that the Germans did not actually get their butts whooped by the Allies today and are tentatively planning another attack on Sunday (between 10 and 12). This will be dependent on how many re-enactors available on Sunday.
When the troops aren't engaging - visitors may tour camps, see period trucks and equipment last year we had a tank!) ,tour the historic Keith House, browse the sutler's booths and grab some lunch.
Battle Reenactment!
On Saturday afternoon the Penrose Strawbridge property will become a french famhouse under occupation by the Germans. The Americans attempt to overcome the nazis and liberate the village. Come witness up close what our GIs went through to save the world from the scourge of Naziism.
The victory is then celebrated with Big Band Dance Concert by the Society Music Makers, a local 17 piece Big Band playing under the big tent at Graeme Park.
Our World War II reenactment is a fun and educational day for the whole family.
Schedule of Event (as of 4/28 - may be subject to change):
- FRI 1800 Reennactor Camp (closed to public)
- SAT 1000-1600 Camps open for tours - WWII Vendors - Great Food
- SAT 1115 War Stories - WWII Vet Herb Levy
- SAT 1140 PA State Senator Stewart Greenleaf
- SAT 1150 PA State Representative Todd Stephens
- SAT 1200-1345 BATTLE REENACTMENT between US and Germans!
- SAT 1400-1500 Concert - Society Music Makers Swing Band playing 40s era Big Band Favorites in the BiG Tent - There is a Dance Floor!
- SAT 1500-1600 Living History!
- SAT 1600 Reennactor Camp (closed to pubic)
- SUN 1000-1500 Camps open for tours
- SUN 1145 PA State Representative Tom Murt
- SUN 1200 War Stories - WWII Vets Alex Horanzy and Mario Chairolanza - Survivors of Pearl Harbor!
- SUN 1300 Honor Guard - Presenting Flags to lex Horanzy, Mario Chairolanza, and Herb Levy
- SUN 1400 Park Closes
Cost of Admission is $10 Saturday which includes the Battle Re-enactment and the concert! Admission Sunday is $6.
Admission for those who defended our country in World War II is free.
The battle will be fought in the woods and around the Penrose Strawbridge House. Access to this area is by way of a gravel road and the spectator area is in the grass. If you have trouble walking, are in a wheel chair, or have other special needs please Contact Us in advance so we can make special arrangements.
Download a WWII Flyer!
Vendors Welcome ... see below
Reenactment Units Participating
The following reenactment groups are expected to take part in our mock battle where the woods and fields of the Penrose-Strawbridge House become 1940s France.
US 35th Infantry (made infamous in the film Kelly's Heroes) - Entering combat in Normandy, the 35th Infantry Division was one of the American Divisions which affected the breakthrough from the Normandy Peninsula at Saint-Lo. The Division was with the spearhead of General Patton's Third Army on the sweep across France and participated in the battles of the Ardennes (Bulge), the Siegfried Line, the Rhine Crossing, the conquest of the Ruhr, and at war's end was one of the units closest to Berlin
US 3rd Mountain
US 9th Infantry.
or 9th Infantry Division on Facebook. The 9th Infantry Division was among the first U.S. combat units to engage in offensive ground operations during World War II, seeing its first combat on 8 November 1942, when its elements landed at Algiers, Safi, and Port Lyautey in North Africa, with the taking of Safi by the 3rd Battalion of the 47th Infantry Regiment standing as the first liberation of a city from Axis control in World War II. With the collapse of French resistance on 11 November 1942, the division patrolled the Spanish Moroccan border. The 9th returned to Tunisia in February and engaged in small defensive actions and patrol activity. On 28 March 1943 it launched an attack in southern Tunisia and fought its way north into Bizerte, 7 May. In August, the 9th landed at Palermo, Sicily, and took part in the capture of Randazzo and Messina. After returning to England for further training, the division landed on Utah Beach on 10 June 1944 (D plus 4), cut off the Cotentin Peninsula, drove on to Cherbourg and penetrated the port's heavy defenses. fter a brief rest in July, the division took part in the St. Lo break-through and in August helped close the Falaise Gap. Turning east, the 9th crossed the Marne, 28 August, swept through Saarlautern,<4> and in November and December held defensive positions from Monschau to Losheim. Moving north to Bergrath, Germany, it launched an attack toward the Roer, 10 December, taking Echtz and Schlich. From mid-December through January 1945, the division held defensive positions from Kalterherberg to Elsenborn. On 30 January the division jumped off from Monschau in a drive across the Roer and to the Rhine, crossing at Remagen, 7 March. After breaking out of the Remagen bridgehead, the 9th assisted in the sealing and clearing of the Ruhr Pocket, then moved 150 miles (240 km) east to Nordhausen and attacked in the Harz Mountains, 14–20 April. On 21 April the Division relieved the 3d Armored Division along the Mulde River, near Dessau, and held that line until VE-day.
US 4th Armored Division The 4th Armored Division landed at Utah Beach on July 13, 1944, a month after the D-Day invasion (June 6, 1944) of the French Normandy coast. Within weeks, the "Breakthrough" division was sweeping across France. During the Battle of the Bulge, the unit provided badly needed support to the encircled U.S. forces in Bastogne, Belgium. In late March 1945, the 4th crossed the Rhine River into central Germany and, by war's end, had reached the Czech border. On April 4, 1945, the "Breakthrough" division overran Ohrdruf, a subcamp of the Buchenwald concentration camp and the first Nazi camp liberated by U.S. troops. Created in November 1944 near the town of Gotha, Ohrdruf supplied forced labor in the form of concentration camp prisoners for railway construction leading to a proposed communications center, which was never completed because of the rapid U.S. advance. In late March 1945, the camp had a prisoner population of some 11,700, but in early April almost all the prisoners were evacuated on death marches to Buchenwald. The SS guards killed many of the remaining prisoners who were too ill to walk to the railway cars. The 4th Armored Division's discovery of the Ohrdruf camp opened the eyes of many U.S. soldiers to the horrors perpetrated by the Nazis during the Holocaust. The 4th Armored Division was recognized as a liberating unit by the U.S. Army's Center of Military History and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 1985.
Nazi 9 Waffen SS Panzer Division - Although condemned as a criminal organization following the Military Tribunal at Nuremburg, the soldiers of the "elite" Waffen SS Divisions were among the most effective of the German military formations. The Hohenstaufen was a lesser known SS Division and did not see combat until the spring of 1944. The division's history is void of the most publicized atrocities attached to other SS divisions. The young soldiers of the Hohenstaufen received their baptism of fire on the Eastern Front in March 1944 and, like so many others before them had found, the weather was their most formidable enemy. The attack to relieve the German 1st Armored Army garrison at Tarnopol began too late and was in the end a failure. During the final days of April 1944, the Hohenstaufen was withdrawn to act as a mobile reserve for Heeresgruppe Nordukraine in anticipation of a renewed Russian offensive. On 6 June 1944, while the Hohenstaufen was refitting in the Ukraine, allied forces began the invasion of Normandy, and opened a second front in the West. The great invasion for which the young SS division had been organized and trained started without them. The Hohenstaufen arrived in Normandy with the II SS Panzer Corps and its sister division, the 10th SS Frundsberg on 23 June. The 9th SS Panzer division was involved in the brutal fighting around the city of Caen and perhaps most notably the brutal battles to seize and hold the critically important heights along Hill 112. Here, the men of the Hohenstaufen tested their training, equipment, and their believed superiority as soldiers against the material strength of the Allies. The battle of Normandy was lost and the Waffen SS Divisions had paid a terrible price in both men and equipment. The Regiment "Hohenstaufen" had been defeated but not destroyed as a fighting unit. Its officers were able to maintain good order, discipline, and conduct an organized retreat. By the end of August, a general retreat to the West Wall was unavoidable. On 2 September, now Kampfgruppe "Hohenstaufen" fought a successful defensive action at Cambria destroying over 40 enemy tanks. The division was brought back up to 80% of its authorized strength by the end of October. By the beginning of December however, the division was out of time. Hitler had ordered a new offensive in the Ardennes. The Hohenstaufen along with the SS Divisions Leibstandarte, Das Reich, and Hitlerjugend were organized into the 6th SS Panzer Army. This formation was to spearhead the last great German offensive in the West. The Hohenstaufen joined the Ardennes offensive - or Battle of the Bulge - on the 18th of December. They fought in the dense forests around the towns of St. Vith and Bastogne. The difficult terrain, poor weather conditions, shortages of fuel and the Allied material superiority in both artillery and airpower once again proved lethal. By the beginning of January the situation was extremely unfavorable for the Hohenstaufen. The Ardennes offensive failed to achieve its objectives of seizing the port of Antwerp and dividing the Allied armies. The Hohenstaufen like the other divisions that took part was forced to retreat. Once again, the elite Waffen SS Divisions had failed to achieve their objectives. Although no records of the Hohenstaufen's casualties exist, Tieke estimates that they may have been as high as 30%. On January 16th, the 6th SS Panzer Army was ordered to withdraw from the fighting in the Ardennes and begin immediately to prepare for another offensive in Hungary. Replacements consisted mostly of untrained Luftwaffe and Navy personnel. Operation Spring Awakening was a death march for the elite Waffen SS Divisions. The 9th Hohenstaufen conducted an orderly retreat back into Germany and finally surrendered to the Americans on 8 May 1945.
394th Infantry - (from battlebabies.20m.com) - The 394th Regiment was first allocated to the Organized Reserves, assigned to the 99th Division, 3rd Corps Area, 24 June 1921, and organized November 1921. The distinctive insigna of the 394th consists of a blue shield for infantry and a reverse pairle (upside down Y) that reprensents the Monongahela and Allegheny rivers flowing into the Ohio River. This represents the area in which the regiment was first allocated. The regiments motto is "Audax et Cautus" which means Bold and Wary.
The Division was Activated on November 15, 1942 at Camp Van Dorn, Mississippi. The Division was sent overseas September 30, 1944 and sent back to the states on September 26, 1945 to Camp Patrick Henry, Virgina. They were deactivated finally on September 27, 1945.
The division was made up replacements, freshly drafted men and "Whiz Kids" from the Army Specialized Training Program after the Army discontinued the program in order to fill the need for Infantry replacements. Also, a number of Air Force ground crew and service members found themselves reassigned to the 99th.
The Division lists its major campaigns as: Ardennes, Remagen, Rhine, Giessenhausen. During its 151 days in combat, the 99th had a turn over rate of 85.1%. The toatal casualties is recorded at 11,987. Of that, 6,103 were battle related.
Overall, the 99th was a typical late war divison. It was almost a mirror image of its sister unit the 106th ID. However, The Divison proved itself to be hard fighting during the Winter of 1944. In truth, the "battle babies" slowed the German advance.
12th SS Hitler Youth - The 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend ("Hitler Youth") was a German Waffen SS armoured division during World War II. The Hitlerjugend was unique because the majority of its junior enlisted men were drawn from members of the Hitler Youth, while the senior NCOs and officers were generally veterans of the Eastern Front.
The division, with 20,540 personnel, first saw action on 7 June 1944 as part of the German defense of the Caen area during the Normandy campaign. The battle for Normandy took its toll on the division and it came out of the Falaise pocket with a divisional strength of 12,000 men.
Following the invasion battles, the division was sent to Germany for refitting. On 16 December 1944, the division was committed against the US Army in the Battle of the Bulge. After the failure of the Ardennes offensive the division was sent east to fight the Red Army near Budapest. The 12th SS eventually withdrew into Austria; on 8 May 1945, the surviving 10,000 men surrendered to the US Army at Enns. At 7:20 am, Captain Mc Lean reported that two Lieutenant Colonels and a Major approached troops of Major General Stanley Eric Reinhart, announcing that within two hours the end of their column would reach the city.
The reputation of the division has been affected by war crimes committed by members of the division during the early battles in Normandy.
2nd Giberg
28th Giberg
15th Recon Commonwealth (Canada)
Vendors
Vendors with products with a tie-in to World War II are welcome to participate Cost is $35 for a 10x10 spot. If you would like to be a part of this event please contact the Friends of Graeme Park. Our vendor contract has complete details and may be downloaded here
Click on photo to see larger image with description